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PRESENT CAUSES FOR THANKSGIVING. 



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A SERMON, 

PKEACHED IX THE 

SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 

BROOKLYN, N. Y., 



EEV. E". "WEST, Jr., 



NOVEMBER 28, 1861. 



NEW YORK : 

JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 50 GREENE STREET. 

1861. 



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CORRESPONDENCE. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., 28th November, 1861. 
Rev. and Dear Sir : 

It was with pleasure, and we trust also with profit, that we listened to the ser- 
mon delivered by you on this Thanksgiving day. 

We desire, iii behalf of your people, to tender you our thanks for the clear enun- 
ciation of fundamental truths, so ably stated in it, and request from you the MS. 
for publication, as we believe that its distribution among many who had not the 
privilege of hearing it will tend to promote truth, piety, and Christian patriotism in 
our once happy and united, but now chastened and distracted land. 
Very respectfully, yours, 
E. A. Biden, Abm. B. Batlis, 

Chas. Clark, John D. McKenzie, 

B. W. De Lamater, Jonathan D. Steele, 

Alanson Trask, Albert Jewett, 

Jas. McFarlane, John H. Prentice, 

W. K. Brown, Samuel Barber, 

A. Cruikshank, Henuy Rowland, 

De Witt C Enos, R. Graves, 

J. S. Pierson, T. K. Horton. 

James E. Goddard, 
To Rev. Nathaniel West, Jr., Pastor of the 

Second Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. 



Brooklyn, December 3d, 1861. 
To Messrs. E. A. Biden, A. B. Baylis, 

Charles Clark, J. D. McKenzie, and others. 

Dear Brethren: — Your kind note expressive of interest in the sermon deliver- 
ed in the Second Presbyterian Church, on our recent day of Thanksgiving, and re- 
questing the same for publication, is before me. It is with no ordinary pleasure I 
accept the thanks of my people, through you, for the maimer iu which I have at- 
tempted to discharge one of the responsibilities that belong to every servant of 
Christ. In such trying times as these, when one of the great duties of the ministry 
is to reinstate the clear truth of God, in reference to national affairs, upon the heart 
and conscience of the people, such thanks for humble efforts in this direction, are 
peculiarly grateful. 

I feel, therefore, all the more free to comply with your request, and to join with 
you in the hope that the distribution of the MS. may " promote truth, piety, and Chris- 
tian patriotism," wherever God may send it. While it is true there are some men so 
patriotic already, that they cannot find time to be penitent, it is equally true (though the 
numbers are few, may they be fewer !) that some profess to be so penitent already, that 
they have not time to be patriotic! To check neither patriotism nor penitence, but 
to blend both together, should be the desire and labor of every Christian. The 
Church, which is a divine institution, has no more right to arrest the patriotism of 
the State, which is also a divine institution, than the State has to arrest the penitence 
of the Church. Both are from God. The Church and the State together, should be 
alike penitent and patriotic. 

Brethren: the manuscript is at your disposal. Do with it as you will. May it 
help us Btil] to battle on ; to fight, to pray, to labor, and to wait. The night soon 
COmea, the night of death, in which no man can work! Happy will it be for us all 
if as life's lamp goes ont, life's work shall seem to have been nobly done. Let us 
take encouragement from the indications around us, that we shall neither run nor 
labor in vain. Cod first, our country next, our family third, and sell', last. 

I must add, in explanation of the length of the manuscript, that for want of time, 
I abbreviated certain portions of the sermon, during its delivery, which I have, how- 
ever, retained in the Copy I herewith furnish. 

Yours, in the bonds of the gospel, 
» 2 503 NATHANIEL WEST, Jr. 

'U5 



SERMON. 



Righteousness exalteth a Nation. — Prov. xiv. 34. 

Blessed is the Nation whose God is Jehovah. — Psal. xxxiii. 12. 

In the revolution of the seasons, we have been 
brought, by the good providence of God, to that period 
of the year when it becomes us to render thanks to Al- 
mighty God, the Supreme Ruler of all, and Giver of all 
good, for the multiplied blessings and mercies wherewith 
He has graciously crowned us as a people. In this ser- 
vice I trust we all engage, not merely from considera- 
tions of conventional propriety, nor merely from formal 
compliance with the proclamation of the civil magistrate, 
but from a deep and abiding sense of gratitude to Him 
in whom "we live, move, and have our being," — "of 
whom, to whom, and through whom, are all things, to 
whom be glory, forever." 

To enumerate all the causes of thanksgiving which, 
to-day, as a nation, as states, communities, churches, 
families, and individuals we have, is, of course, impossi- 
ble. As they crowd upon our hearts, and we recount 
them in our memories, we can but py f > if^possessed of a 



proper spirit, each for himself, as the Psalmist said, 
" How precious are thy thoughts unto me, God ! How 
great is the sum of them ! they are more in number than 
the sand!" True, indeed, there have been disappoint- 
ments, bereavements, and sorrows, blasted hopes, and 
painful experiences, in the hours of our histories as a 
people, but yet there have been mercies undeserved, 
comforts unexpected, favors of Providence, successes and 
prosperities, light mingling with darkness, smiles with 
frowns, victories with defeats, hope with despondency, 
gladness with tears, and the sweet with the bitter, all 
the way through, so that we are called upon to "bless 
the Lord, and forget not all His benefits, who forgiveth 
all our iniquities, who healeth all our diseases, who re- 
deemeth our life from destruction, who crowneth us with 
loving-kindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth our 
mouth with good things, so that our youth is renewed 
like the eagle's." Each of us may well say, "Bless the 
Lord, my soul." 

While thus recognizing the goodness of God, I have 
deemed it appropriate to our service, to-day, and feel 
justified by the circumstances of the times in so doing, 
to call attention to some things for which, in our col- 
lective capacity as a " Nation," we have, in this crisis of 
our career, most abundant reason to magnify the name 
of God, — things which, growing out of the recent agita- 
tions and convulsions of the country, are, I think, full of 
promise for the nation, and foretoken a future of national 
exaltation in righteousness, such as we have not enjoyed 
in the past. In pursuance of this general statement I 
propose to enquire, 



I. WJiat we are to understand by a "Nation" in the 
technical sense of the term. 

II. By what means a Nation is exalted, and Jehovah's 
blessing secured. 

III. What are some of the things, growing out of 
our present struggle, for ivhich we should give thanks, 
because indicative of promise that God will exalt us, and 
bless us, even more in the future than He has done in the 
past. 

I. First, then, I remark that the term "Nation" ex- 
presses a complex idea and fact. It represents a people 
permanently united together in certain natural, geogra- 
phical, political, and religious relations, having common 
manners, customs, laws, and institutions. To constitute 
a nation, in the strict sense of the term, several things 
are absolutely indispensable. The first is Unity of 
Mace. -The etymology of the term "nation," indicates 
this, its primary meaning being that of birth. This 
distinctive characteristic is found in the history of every 
nation of which we have any account. Though all 
mankind are essentially one, because of their common 
origin, yet, by means of various causes, they are divided 
into various races, and marked by such strong peculiari- 
ties, and oftentimes antipathies, that their common re- 
union in one distinctive and harmonious nationality is 
rendered utterly impossible. Therefore it is that sepa- 
rate national existence becomes a necessity, each nation 
representing in the page of history either a distinctive 
race, or a modified division of one. Egypt, Persia, 
Greece, and Rome, could no more have been blended 



in one nationality, than can Germany, France, Italy and 
America. Unity of race, however, need not be abso- 
lute. A nation may exist, where a slight intermingling 
of different races occurs. That which is essential is the 
presence of one predominant race, capable of prepon- 
derating vastly, in every respect, over the other inci- 
dental foreign accessions which, enter into its composi- 
tion. Allied to this is Unity of Language, a second re- 
quisite. Diversity here, is likely to reproduce some of 
the fatal consequences which attended the first con- 
founding of tongues at Babel. The bonds of society, 
law, and order, are seriously weakened by the presence 
of different languages, which, being the vehicles of 
thought, emotion, and communication, tend only to as- 
similate still more to each other, in all their distinctive 
peculiarities, those to whom any one of them is common, 
and thus retard the consolidation of national sympathy 
and unity. Thus, the conqueror has ever sought, where- 
ever it was possible, to destroy the vernacular of the 
conquered people, by refusing to them public instruc- 
tion, either written or oral, except in the national lan- 
guage. Unity of Country is a third'element. A nation 
without a country is an impossibility. The only ap- 
parent exception to this is that of the Hebrew people in 
the wilderness of Arabia, and yet no real exception, for 
the Promised Land was their hope, without which, the 
perpetuation of their infant nationality had been possi- 
ble only by miracle. Severance of territory is an ele- 
ment of weakness. Unity of domain, and closely-linked 
interdependence of parts — a soil geographically one, set 
apart by great physical dividing lines, whether of rivers, 



mountains, oceans, or seas, from other portions of the 
earth's surface, is necessary to the stability of any nation. 
One reason of the loss of the American colonies to the 
British crown was their physical separation from the 
geographical centre of the British Home Government. 
A fourth essential to permanent nationality is 'Unity of 
Religion. It is hardly possible to conceive of a nation- 
ality with religions totally and fundamentally antagonis- 
tic. No such phenomenon ever was known. Paganism 
with its idols, Mohammedanism with its absurdities, 
Judaism with its superannuated traditions, and Mormon- 
ism with its effete and licentious practices, and all 
with their mutually opposing characteristics, never could 
be incorporated with Christianity in one common nation- 
ality. The fierce collisions of religious strife would 
awaken the most terrible resentments, destroy the har- 
mony of society, and scatter the community into frag- 
ments by the power of inward repulsion. The last 
element essential to the existence of a nation, is Unity 
of Government. The one people, speaking the one 
language, inhabiting the one country, and professing the 
one religion, must be subject also to one government. 
We speak not now of particular forms of government. 
It may be despotic, constitutionally limited, representa- 
tive, or purely democratic. It cannot certainly be all 
of them separately or together. Whatever it is, it must 
be one and supreme. There must be one system of 
authority, extending its exercise over all, and requiring, 
yea, insisting upon the obedience and support of all. 
It were impossible to conduct the aifairs of a nation 
upon a political basis compounded of the autocracy of 



8 

Russia, the imperialism of France, the monarchy of Great 
Britain, and the republicanism of America. The sys- 
tems are antagonistic. Equally impossible is it to con- 
duct the affairs of a nation where two distinct and con- 
flicting supremacies or governments are allowed to 
exist in 'the bosom of the same body politic, to one or 
other of which the people, as they choose, may sur- 
render themselves. While it is possible for a nation to 
exist, having many distinct geographical sections, if yet 
the whole national domain is geographically one, it is 
utterly impossible for a nation to exist, having in its 
bosom many distinct sovereignties, each supported by 
laws, manners, customs, and institutions peculiar to it- 
self, and incompatible with each other. The very idea 
of nationality is hereby destroyed. Yea, though the 
laws, manners, customs, and institutions of each were 
identical and coincident, still the^ery fact of absolute and 
multiplied sovereignties would'' involve, by inevitable 
necessity, the dissolution of national unity. The gov- 
ernment of a nation must be politically central, power- 
ful, and one. Its authority, legislative, judicial, and 
executive, must extend to all the sections of the whole 
domain, and be everywhere, over all persons and all 
things, supreme. Petty sovereignties, and tribal asso- 
ciations are the distinctive marks of a nomadic or 
barbarous state, as found among Asiatics and Afri- 
cans, or they are at best but the attributes of an 
inferior civilization, such as was found in the Achaean 
League of ancient days, or as is yet seen to some extent 
in the scarcely better Germanic Confederation, where 
nothing but fear and military force keeps together the 



conglomerate of little monarchies, duchies, principalities, 
and minor republics, with free cities, in one common 
and politically incoherent association. 

These jive things, then, are necessary to constitute a 
" Nation " — Unity of Race, Unity of Language, Unity 
of Country, Unity of Religion, and Unity of Govern- 
ment. The diversity of these, mingling together in 
any thing like equal, or nearly equal, proportions, must 
render the construction of a nation utterly impossible, 
or entering into one already constructed, increasing and 
developing themselves, must produce national conten- 
tion, be the cause and concomitant of national corruption, 
and the ominous prophecy of national dismemberment 
and extinction. In the convulsions that would follow, 
during the death-throes of the nation, a new government 
would have to be extemporized, most probably a dicta- 
torship or military despotism, if anarchy were at all to 
be checked, and out of the conflicting mass an " Empire," 
such as that of Great Britain might result, recognizing 
the existence of petty principalities, sovereignties, and 
dependencies, and keeping all in subjection by one su- 
perior force, but the " Nation," as such, i| gone forever, 
— all the more convulsively in its decease, if that the 
territory of its existence, the national domain, was geo- 
graphically one. 

And, just here, in connection with these remarks, I 
would interrupt the method of the discourse, for a mo- 
ment, to anticipate one of the causes we have, to-day, 
for National thanksgiving. While, for one, I cannot 
disguise the forebodings which the consideration of these 
essential unities is calculated to awaken, and must 



10 

awaken in the breast of every thoughtful student of his 
country's history and condition, — forebodings in view 
of what tendency there has been, and still is, to en- 
courage here, in this land, a diversity of races, and with 
these a necessary diversity of language ; to tolerate and 
protect equally not simply different forms of the same 
Christian religion, but forms of so-called religions to- 
tally diverse ; to legalize, and defend by law, institutions 
wholly incompatible, and to have permitted, for years, 
the growth of a sentiment, diametrically opposed to 
the very idea of national unity, and all this upon the 
platform of the national domain which, by physical con- 
formation, is geographically one ; — while all this is so, 
nevertheless, as a people, we have abundant reason, yea 
special occasion to bless God, this day, for this one thing, 
that still we are a Nation. Though impaired, some- 
what, in one of our necessary elements of national unity, 
that of the government, (and fighting to restore it to its 
original integrity, which, with God's blessing we shall,) 
still we have a Government ! and we have a Nation ! 
For this we render thanks most devoutly to God. Inde- 
pendent and separate from all others, the American 
people, and the old Government, are not yet blotted 
out from the face of the earth. This "Nation " still ex- 
ists, with influence, power, and determined will enough, 
to make itself respected, admired and feared by the 
whole world. Notwithstanding the upstart Body Politic 
and Peripatetic of the South, the American people, as 
known to the world, have still one name, glorious in 
the register of the past, destined to be yet more glo- 
rious in the register of the future ; one flag, the colors of 



11 



which were never more bright, the waving of which in 
the breeze of heaven, was never more graceful, and the 
memories of which were never more dear than now ; one 
bold energetic Anglo-Saxon race, predominating vast- 
ly over all the rest ; one common Christianity, teaching 
in its various evangelic forms the open Bible, in its 
purity; one language, in its richness, fulness, power, and 
practical importance, predominating also in the land, 
and uttering from pulpit, platform, press, and legislative 
halls, the mighty truths which uow heave the nation's 
breast, and one domain, the right to which is still main- 
tained, and ever shall be, stretching in its vast mag- 
nificence across a continent, from Atlantic to Pacific, 
from the Southern Gulf to Northern Lakes, from the 
regions of the tropics to the polar snows, equal to 
three-fourths of all the European world. Our Agri- 
culture, Commerce, Trade, and Capital, our Institutions, 
Science, Art, Law, and Letters, our multiplied facilities 
for intercourse, and all our other means of national 
improvement, are still untaken from us. Yes ! we still 
are a great, a mighty nation, never stronger in our pur- 
pose or our will than now. And when we think of 
what we might have been, had God but given us up 
entirely to our sins, and suffered us to sink, without the 
power to put one effort forth to save ourselves, for our 
existence now we bless Him, and from our' hearts we 
should, this day, pour forth our fervent thanks, and 
magnify His name. " Not unto us, not unto us, but unto 
Thy name give glory" 

II. But to proceed. Having spoken technically of 



12 



what constitutes a nation, let us consider what it is that 
gives to a nation true grandeur and eminence in the 
sight of God. This is answered by the wise man, the 
monarch of the Hebrew people during the period of 
Israel's greatest splendor. " Righteousness exalteth a 
nation." Beyond question, there must be a standard of 
righteousness, possessed and supremely authoritative, 
according to which the life of the nation is to be con- 
formed ; otherwise to know what righteousness is will 
be utterly impossible. Precisely then, and in a word, 
the standard of righteousness for a nation, in all its 
actings, is the will of God, both as recorded in the 
Book of Nature, and as written, more clearly and fully, 
in the brighter Book of Revelation. It can be no other 
than this: Conformity to God's will is righteousness; 
and as God is the author of both Nature and Revelation, 
the rules by which the whole conduct of men is to be 
governed, in things natural, social, civil, political, moral, 
and religious, are to be gathered from the intelligent 
interpretation of nature and the constitution of things,* 
as also from the express words of a direct revelation from 
heaven, God speaking authoritatively to man in both. 
A nation's righteousness is the sum of the righteousness 
of all the individuals composing it, acting in their sep- 
arate or organized capacities, of whatever character, 
and in all their relations, according to the will of God 
thus ascertained. Thus this will lies at the foundation 
of all society, and gives to it all its sanction. And, 
therefore, it follows that the exaltation of a nation in 

* See Lord Bacon's Works, vol. ii. p. 138, vol. iii. p. 345, Philadelphia, 1846. 
Also, Burlamaqui's Principles of Natural Law, p. 106, Dublin, 1791. Also, Harris' 
Man Primeval, p. 261, Boston, 1850. 



13 

righteousness involves the conscious and devout recog- 
nition of Jehovah himself, the God of Nature and Rev- 
elation, as Supreme Ruler over all, and His law or will 
as the supreme authority. Hence, ouly that nation can 
be truly called " blessed," ivhose God is the Lord. 

Since the introduction of Christianity, with the 
memory of the appalling examples of Egypt, Assyria, 
Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece, and Rome, all perished 
and gone for want of national conformity to the will of 
God ; and with the memory of the still more impressive 
example of the decline and fall of the Hebrew common- 
wealth, so blessed with peculiar privilege, and with the 
bright lustre of the clearest revelation from heaven, 
legists and statesmen have not been slow to enunciate 
this great truth, as one which lies at the very foundation 
of all national righteousness. The will of God, they 
have all, with one accord, declared, must constitute the 
basis of all national greatness, and form the ground of 
all human enactments. In asserting this principle, they 
have but paid the tribute of their combined homage to 
the supreme authority of God, and acknowledged the 
truth of the text. By insisting upon the conformity of 
human laws with God's will, they have sought, like wise 
men thereby to secure, in the obedience of the citizen 
to human legislation, an obedience to God. Thus it is 
that Blackstone, the prince of legal commentators, in 
the very commencement of his legal expositions, and 
reaching back to the primary foundations of all human 
laws, declares, " Upon these two foundations, the law 
of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human 
laws ; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered 



14 



to contradict these. If any human law allow or enjoin 
us to commit murder, we are bound to transgress that 
human law, or else we must offend both the natural and 
the divine." * To the same purpose is the legal maxim, 
the maxim of common law, (summa ratio est quse pro 
religione facit,) as given by Coke upon Lyttleton: 
" Where the laws of God and man conflict, the former 
are to be obeyed in derogation of the latter." f Vattel, 
whose authority as a writer upon the law of nations is 
known to every legal student, thus speaks of the State, 
which is but the technical name for the body politic of 
the nation, and in which the national conscience, if there 
is any, is supposed to reside: "It is a Moral Person, 
having an understanding and a will peculiar to itself, 
and susceptible of obligations and laws." J It is what 
Blackstone calls an " Artificial Person, devised for the 
purposes of society and government." § " The State," 
says Whewell, " has not only a moral character, but a 
conscience ; and has duties of the same description as 
those of individuals — duties of humanity, justice, truth, 
purity, order, and religious belief." | Burlamaqui, in 
speaking of it, says it is accountable to God for its legis- 
lation. " The will of God is its supreme rule, and ought 
absolutely to determine its conduct." T John Locke, 
in his essay on Civil Government, makes use of this 
language: "The rules that legislators make for other 
men's actions, as well as their own, must be conform- 
able to the law of nature and the will of God, of which 

* BLickftone's Commentaries, vol. i. Introduction, sect. ii. 

+ Coke upon Lyttleton, 341 (a). Also, Broom's Legal Maxims, p. 59. 

I Law of Nations, Preliminaries, pp. 49, 55. So Wheaton, Inter. Law, p. 28. 

§ Commentaries, vol. i. p. 88. 

H Elements of .Morality, vol. ii. pp. 208, 210. 

T[ Principles of Natural Law, p. 172. 



15 

that is a declaration, and no human sanction can be valid 
against it." * So says the profound and judicious 
Hooker, in his Polity. " Human laws have their higher 
rules to be measured by, which rules are two, the law 
of God and the law of Nature ; so that laws human 
must be made according to the law of nature, and with- 
out contradiction to any positive law of Scripture." f 
In the same unwavering recognition of the eternal and 
predestinated foundation of all national righteousness, 
Dr. John Owen, the prince of theologians, has said : 
"Men have a Superior Power over them in heaven, 
whose laws, and the revelation of whose will concern- 
ing them, is the supreme rule of their duty, whence an 
obligation is laid upon their consciences of doing what- 
soever is commanded, and not doing whatsoever is for- 
bidden by Him, which is superior to, and actually su- 
persedes all human laws and commands that interfere 
therewith." J 

I cannot refrain, in fortifying this great position and 
elucidating the doctrine of the text by the testimonies 
of great men, who have stood as beacon lights in the 
world, from quoting the words of Sir Edmund Burke, 
the most gifted man the British Parliament ever knew. 
Instructed by the terrible lessons of the French Revolu- 
tion, and speaking in his "Reflections" of the impor- 
tance of a nation building itself upon the word of God 
as its only security, he thus grows eloquent: "Taking 
ground on that religious system of which we are now in 
possession, we continue to act on the early received and 

* Essay, Civil Government, cap. xi. sect. 135. 
f Ecclesiastical Polity, Book iii. seot. 9. 
X Right of Dissent, p. 393. 



16 



uniformly continued sense of mankind. That sense, not 
only like a wise architect, hath built up the august fabric 
of states, but like a provident proprietor, to preserve 
the structure from profanation and ruin, as a sacred 
temple, purged from all the impurities of fraud, and 
violence, and injustice, and tyranny, hath solemnly and 
forever consecrated the Commonwealth and all that offi- 
ciate in it. This consecration is made that all who ad- 
minister in the government of men, in which they stand 
in the person of God himself, should have high and 
worthy notions of their functions and destination, that 
their hope should be full of immortality, that they 
should not look to the paltry pelf of the moment, nor 
to the temporary and transient praise of the vulgar, but 
to a solid permanent existence in the permanent part of 
their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory in the 
example they leave as a rich inheritance to the world. 
All persons possessing any portion of power, ought to 
be strongly and awfully impressed with the idea that 
they act in trust, and that they are accountable for their 
conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, 
and Founder of Society."* I will only add here the 
further utterance of one of England's greatest living 
statesmen, Mr. Gladstone, who, in his work upon the 
Relation of the State to the Church, affirms: "Any other 
view sets up a vast unconsecrated atheistic power at 
the head of all the social interests of mankind as an ex- 
ample for all individuals to follow, a model to teach 
them, an authoritative declaration to assist the evil 
voice within in teaching them that they may withdraw 

* Works. Vol. i., p. 415, col. 2; p. 416, col. 1. London, 1850. 



17 

their own individual lives from allegiance to God, and 
base their methods of social conduct upon a code in 
which His name is not to be found."* 

Thus it is that the patient students of national great- 
ness, enlightened by the history of the world, and in- 
doctrinated by the word of God, announce everywhere, 
in tones of mighty earnestness, the great principle that 
a nation's glory consists not in policies of human wis- 
dom, accumulations of wealth, flourishing trade, physi- 
cal strength, extent of empire, or splendid conquests, 
but in the unfeigned recognition of Jehovah as Supreme 
Ruler over all, and in the practice of that righteousness 
of national life which conforms the body politic, in all 
its legislations, and the individuals of society to the 
Supreme, the Absolute, and Authoritative Law of God. 
And thus it is that kings, rulers, presidents, cabinets, 
councils, senates, legislatures, governors, judges, and 
people, are instructed to look upward and backward to 
that great and eternal will of God, which, lying at the 
foundation of the constitution of things in the universe, 
reveals an established government of the world as the 
" mirror for the government of a state, a wisdom almost 
lost;"f and also to look to that Divine Revelation which 
requires obedience to God's word as the evidence of 
national righteousness. Man, sinful and inflated with a 
vain and false idea of liberty, may flatter himself that he 
is born free to legislate in his own behalf, and, by com- 
pacts and conventions, establish such a social constitu- 
tion, independent of God's will, as will secure national 

* State in its Relations with the Church. Vol. ii., p. 350. London, 1841. 
f Bacon's W rks. Vol. ii., p. 138. 
2 



18 

exaltation and the Divine blessing. But the sad disap- 
pointment of his hope is not more certain than his theo- 
ries and philosophies of himself and government are 
absurd and disastrous. "We are all born," it has elo- 
quently and truly been said, "in subjection, all born 
equally, high and low, governors and governed, in sub- 
jection to one great, immutable, pre-existent law, prior 
to all our devices, prior to all our contrivances, para- 
mount to all our ideas and all our sensations, antecedent 
to our very existence, by which we are knit and con- 
nected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of which 
we cannot stir. This great law does not arise from our 
conventions or compacts ; on the contrary it gives to 
conventions and compacts all the force and sanction they 
can have. It does not arise from our vain institutions. 
Every good gift is of God. All power is of God, and 
He who has given the power, and from whom alone it 
originates, will never suffer the exercise of it to be prac- 
tised upon any less solid foundation than the power it- 
self. If, then, all dominion of man over man is the 
effect of the Divine disposition, it is bound by the eternal 
laivs of Him that gave it, which no human authority can 
dispense ivith."* Thus it is we are taught that a first 
and fundamental duty of every citizen is the acknowl- 
edgment of the indisputable authority of this law, 
which binds the conscience in unswerving allegiance 
to constituted civil government as an ordinance of God, 
making resistance thereto resistance to God, and rebel- 
lion against it rebellion against Him, until government 
itself, by the enactment of laws in contravention of the 

* Burke's Works. Vol. iii., p. 327. Harper's edition. 



19 

laws of God, becomes a " throne of iniquity," the de- 
stroyer of the very foundation of national righteousness, 
and prepares the people for the judgments of Heaven. 

That a capricious people, given over to avarice or 
pride, or led away from justice and truth, and moral 
virtue, by the love of pecuniary profit ; or that unprin- 
cipled, designing, and godless men, ambitious of power 
at whatever hazard and cost, or even timid and wavering 
men, should deny the supremacy of the Will of God 
over the national and individual conscience, in all things, 
or dream that tmrighteousness will exalt a nation, is not 
surprising. But that any who profess to enjoy the ad- 
vantages of a liberal education, who have the condensed 
wisdom of the greatest writers upon ethics, jurispru- 
dence, and theology, before them, the lights of universal 
history as guides, and above all, the Word of God in 
their hands, should deny this, or compromise the prin- 
ciple, is marvellous indeed ! Pagans themselves might 
afford us better example and better teaching. " Moral 
righteousness," said Plato, " is the pillar and support of 
the State." 

This, then, is the method by which a nation is to be 
exalted ; even by building itself upon the Will of God. 
The expression of that will as found in Nature, but more 
as shining in Revelation, compassing all our natural, civil, 
social, political, moral, and religious duties, legislating 
not only for time, but also for eternity, not only for the 
body but more for the soul of man, is the authoritative 
and supreme rule for all society, and the only pledge of 
security and honor. 



20 

III. Having spoken thus, I proceed to mention some 
of the things which, growing out of the present struggle 
in which we are engaged, afford us great reason, as 
Christians and patriots, for thanksgiving to Almighty 
God, and promise for us, I think, a future brighter than 
the past. And the first I mention is, 

1. The direct recognition of Jehovah, to which, by 
affliction, the nation has been brought, and our public hu- 
miliation on account of our transgressions as a people. 
The prophet Isaiah says, "With my soul have I desired 
thee in the night ; yea, with my spirit within me will I 
seek thee early; for when thy judgments are in the 
earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteous- 
ness." " The fear of the Lord is to depart from all in- 
iquity." Just in proportion as a people forget to recog- 
nize, individually, or collectively, God as the author of 
their blessings and their destinies, and cease to feel their 
dependence on Him, in that proportion they depart from 
Him and forsake that righteousness of life upon condition 
of which He has promised all national security and glory. 
How great have been our shortcomings in this respect, 
we all know. We look back, indeed, to the epoch when 
the representatives of the people, at the time of the 
birth of the nation, halted in their deliberations to invoke 
the blessing of God upon their efforts, and appealing to 
the Supreme Ruler of all for the rectitude of their in- 
tentions, pledged to each other, their " lives, fortunes, 
and sacred honors." Further still in the retrospect, 
shortly after the morning of the Reformation had cast 
its light upon the world's darkness, and a new hope 
dawned on the human mind, we behold the exiled pio- 



21 

neers of this nation, kneeling with their shivering house- 
holds on the wintry and rock-bound shores of a new 
country, and committing all their interests to the care 
of Him, to serve whom, in righteousness of life, they 
had suffered the loss of all. Alas ! how different has been 
the conduct of the American people during the present 
generation of men, in reference to this public recognition 
of God in the affairs of the nation ! What forgetfulness 
of Him, what pride and selfishness, and violence, and 
evil work ! How little have rulers and ruled remem- 
bered that He is God over all, and can save or destroy ! 
To-day, we are permitted to rejoice and bless God 
for the returning and increased sense of our dependence 
on Him, in all things. We have truly been humbled 
into the dust, our national vanity broken, and our self- 
boasting destroyed. Our calamities, trials, pressures and 
defeats, have inaugurated a new era, one of National re- 
cognition of God as the arbiter of nations, one of National 
and State proclamations from our Chief Magistrates, 
Congress and Legislatures, calling upon us to humble 
ourselves before God, confess our sins, and supplicate 
His favor in our behalf. To these proclamations, we 
have every reason to believe, our rulers, whether State 
or Federal, our Army, Navy, and people, have paid 
becoming deference, and awakened to the consciousness 
of national sin, as the reason of God's controversy with 
us, have earnestly sought, and are still seeking from Him, 
His interposition in our behalf. In the eyes of the whole 
world, God has been publicly acknowledged, and na- 
tional dependence on Him publicly recognized. We 
have begun to learn, and to instil into the hearts of the 



22 

on-coming generation, that there are such things as na- 
tional righteousness, national sin, national guilt, and 
national reckoning, and that only can a people be per- 
petually blessed, prosperous and peaceful, who make 
Jehovah their Lord, and His Supreme Will their Statute. 
In our disasters and reverses, in our shame and humilia- 
tion, as a people, in the pain of our hearts, and the turn- 
ing of our thoughts to God, the " wise man " has been 
taught not to "glory in his wisdom," the "mighty man" 
not to " glory in his might," and the " rich man " not to 
" glory in his riches," but whosoever will glory, to glory 
alone in the understanding and knowing of God ; that 
it is He who exercises "loving-kindness, judgment, and 
righteousness in the earth." God grant that the Ameri- 
can people may never forget this lesson, but that chas- 
tened by affliction, they may pass all the rest of their 
lives under the sombre memory, the deep shadow of 
Jehovah's judgments, doing justice, loving mercy, and 
walking humbly before God. 

2. We give thanks to-day, for the revival of the true 
spirit of patriotism in the hearts of the people. Time 
was, not long ago, when the love of country seemed to 
be utterly absorbed by the love of gain ; when the rapa- 
city of an extravagant commercial spirit, confident of 
success, had called away the minds of men from the 
cultivation of noble virtues, to the scramble for riches 
and luxury. It was a time when country, and all that 
the patriot holds dear, honor, justice, truth, respect, 
order, government, and national glory, would have been 
bartered away for the base commodity of perishable 
wealth, when every great and eternal principle seemed 



23 



to have been subordinated to low material and com 
mercial interests, and peace among ourselves desired at 
whatever cost or hazard, rather than the loss of trade or 
money. The words of "honest, honest Iago" in the 
play, 

" Go, make money ; put money in thy purse ! 
Go to, Go to, put money in thy purse, Go to," 

were ringing in the ears of all, in high as well as low 
places, in public as well as private life, and sordid 
avarice was bribing fast the virtue of the people, and 
their rulers, to sell the country, government and all, or 
else divide the nation for the sake of gold. One cry 
seemed to be upon the lips of all, engaged in business, 
or having to do with the conduct of the nation, and 
that was gold ; — 

"Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! 
Bright and yellow, hard and cold, 
Heavy to get, and light to hold, 
Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold ; 
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled ; 
Spurned by the young, hugged by the old, 
To the very verge of the church-yard mould, 
Price of many a crime untold. 
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!" 

Bless we God, this day, with all our heart, for the 
bombardment and fall of Fort Sumter, which, mightier 
in its effect than the fabled stamp ofPompey, that start- 
ed legions into life, has thrilled the national heart with 
the ardor of a just resentment, and wakened into 
patriotic array an army of heroic men, greater than 
ever had Pompey, Ctesar, Alexander, Hannibal, or 
Napoleon! Bless we that predestinating purpose of 
God, which, according to His inscrutable wisdom, sub- 



24 

jected us to the stroke, in order that, brought to our 
senses, by humiliation and shame, we might, first of all, 
break asunder the bonds that bound us, in our servile 
drudgery, to mammon, and pouring out the country's 
treasure for the country's good, rally around her falling 
standard, lifting ourselves up to noble sacrifices, self- 
denials, sentiments of honor, self-respect, and deter- 
mined will to kill the principle that sought to kill the 
nation for the sake of gain ! We hail with joy the new 
era that dawns upon us, because of the promise it gives 
that the power of a low, wretched, and materializing 
philosophy, and the power of an inferior civilization 
yet lingering among us, subsidizing to themselves, by 
oppression and corruption, all the energies of the nation, 
are to be broken, and we trust, fall into perpetual dis- 
grace. Well has an accomplished writer, in our country, 
Mr. Sewell, in his work on " Christian Politics," said, 
"It is absolutely necessary, at this day, that all who 
value their country should raise a warning voice, 
whether in legislature, pulpit or schools, or in books, 
against that theory which makes the accumulation of 
physical good and augmentation of ivealth, the end of 
society, and the primary obligation of a citizen. Such 
a theory has gnawed its way, not only into all our 
political philosophy, but into our public legislation, and 
private practice, till it has degraded society from its 
highest functions, sensualized, and annualized its char- 
acter, and extinguished the noblest instincts of private 
as well as of public life."* 

* Quoted by E. D. Macalester, D.D., in his address upon the " True Life of a Na- 
tion," p. 26. 



25 

Thank we God, then, for the patriotic spirit of the 
day, than which nothing, save the gospel, is more op- 
posed to the purely selfish and all-devouring com- 
mercial. It is one of the most powerful correctives of 
this evil, and productive of some of the grandest traits 
that can adorn the human character. Thank we Him 
for that spirit which, sacrificing all for the love it bears 
to' its country, listens to the call of the trumpet, and 
rushes to brave danger for the sake of national ex- 
istence, principle, justice, honor, and renown. Let it 
be cherished. Let it be fanned into a brilliant flame. 
Let it be fixed deeply in every breast, teaching that 
no man was ever born for the sordid service of self, 
nor merely for the better service of his parents, but 
born for his country and his God ; that he who waits 
in passive submission for the hour of his natural death, 
living for self, and unwilling in a holy cause to lose 
his life, or sacrifice his property, is a soul to be de- 
spised and shunned ; while he who holds himself in 
readiness to welcome danger and encounter death, at 
any moment, rather than endure his country's vassal- 
age and shame, and falls upon the crimsoned field, 
shall write his chronicle upon a nation's memory, and 
share a nation's glory, gratitude, and tears. And as 
we thank God, this day, for the hundreds of thousands 
of brave souls who are bearing aloft the banner of their 
country's greatness, and for the hundreds of thousands 
more soon to follow, like waves succeeding waves, let 
us pause to pay our tribute to the martyrs of the strife 
who have already fallen where the battle boomed, and 
the smoke spread thick, where warriors shouted, and 



26 

where garments, rolled in blood, reddened on the sight ! 
Let us repeat, uncovered, over the patriot dead, the 
eulogy inscribed upon the public monument, reared by 
the city of Athens, to those who fell at Chasronea : 

" These for their country's sacred cause arrayed. 
In arms tremendous, sought the fatal plain; 
Braved the proud foe, with courage undismayed, 
And greatly scorned dishonor's abject stain. 

" Fair virtue led them to the arduous strife ; 
Avenging terror menaced in their eyes ; 
For freedom, nobly prodigal of life, 

Death they proposed their common glorious prize." * 

How different this spirit from that of selfishness and 
sordid avarice ! 

3. I mention, also, as another cause of thanksgiving 
to God, the returning sense of public justice, and the de- 
termination of our citizens and rulers, that due punish- 
ment shall he executed, not only upon the authors of our 
present calamity, ivherever possible, but upon all offenders 

* Quoted by Demosthenes, in his " Oration on the Crown." 

" OlSe irarpas eveKa (rcperepas etr drjpiv e&evTO 

'OirAa, Kai avTiiraAuv vppiv aTrecnceSaffav." 

&c, &c, &c. 

It were well for those who have no thanks for the army or navy, or Administration, 
if their souls could only be stirred by that burst of patriotic sublimity which escaped 
from the lips of Demosthenes, when justifying the Athenians for battling against 
their enemies ; — a burst of eloquence which has challenged the praises not only of 
Longinus and Quinctilian, but of every reader and critic, both ancient and modern. 
"AAA' ovk tariv, ovk eariv, birus Tifxaprere," &C, &c. "But no! no! my country- 
men, it cannot be, it cannot be, that ye have erred in encountering danger bravely 
for the liberty and safety of the whole. No ! By the memorj- of your forefathers exposed 
to danger upon the plains of Marathon ; by those who stood in battle array at Platea ; 
by those who encountered the Persian fleet at Salamis, by those who fought at Arte- 
misium, and by many others, illustrious sons of Athens, whose remains lie deposited 
in the public monuments! " Dcmosth. Orat. Tom. i., pp. 284, 307. Leipsic, 1844. 
What American can think of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, and not feel that 
th re he finds the justification of his country's present effort, to smite her assailants 
to the ground ! 



27 

against the public weal. Too long, the people of this 
nation, inflated with the idea of a spurious liberty, and 
a false independence, have presumed to transgress, with 
impunity, the laws of the land. Too long, rulers and 
ruled have connived at crime, corrupting and being cor- 
rupted, until, by the unpunished conspiracies of design- 
ing men, the nation has well nigh been brought to de- 
struction. Subjection to civil authority was daily giving 
place to defiance thereof, and success in escaping the 
threatened penalty becoming a license for the commission 
of bolder iniquity. Had but the strong arm of the law 
been vigorously applied in time, the American nation 
had been spared her present calamity. It is not more 
a truth of Scripture, than it is of individual and national 
experience, that "because sentence against an evil work 
is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons 
of men is fully set in them to do evil." Wicked men 
and seducers wax worse and worse, until the very foun- 
dations of national greatness and security are upturned 
and destroyed in one common ruin. It is vain for the 
State or the Nation to leave to morality or religion, 
alone, the task of restraining society from crime. With- 
out the aid of the strong arm of legal enactment, and 
the unflinching execution of legal penalty, all that reli" 
gion or morality can do will be swept away in the rising 
and overwhelming tide of social and political degeneracy. 
Offenders must be punished, and villains must be ex- 
pelled by the timely visitation of condign punishment, 
and made an example to all. 

The tendency of our present struggle is to produce 
precisely this wholesome sentiment among all classes of 



men. It is, therefore, a bow of promise to the nation. 
How much such a sentiment is needed, is sadly manifest, 
even in the present crisis, in which, men, though con- 
scious we are struggling for national existence, are yet 
found excusing, palliating, and even justifying that 
treachery in others which lifts its arm to pull down the 
Government and Nation from turret to base, and destroy 
our constitutional union. There is no better method of 
educating offenders into loyalty, obedience to law, and 
good citizenship, than to furnish them a practical per- 
suasion of the impossibility of escaping their just deserts, 
if they are guilty of transgression. Never, till the whole 
people are imbued with the sentiment that justice shall 
be meted out impartially to vicious men, will society 
feel secure. Never, till our judges and lawyers and 
juries, and all in authority, are made to understand that 
the indignant rebuke, and frown of a virtuous commu- 
nity, await the neglect of official duties, will they realize 
that what quantum of official power they possess, has 
only been allowed them in the State or the Nation, as 
so much of power held hy them in trust for the 'peo'ple^ and 
to be diligently exercised by them for the welfare of all. 
" Juries, indeed," says a recent writer on " Christian 
Politics," "are not to indulge conjectures or magnify 
suspicions into proofs, or even weigh probabilities in 
gold scales ; but when evidence furnishes that degree of 
credibility upon which men decide and act in all other 
doubts, and which experience hath shown that they may 
decide and act upon with sufficient safety, to reject such 
proof, from an insinuation of uncertainty that belongs 
to all human affairs, is a conduct, which, however natural 



29 

to a mind studious of its own quiet, is authorized by no 
considerations of rectitude or of utility."* 

Let us hail, then, as a blessing from God, the dispo- 
sition to insist upon the uncompromising enforcement 
of the law against transgressors, or the abettors of trans- 
gressors, who seek only their own profit at the expense 
of the country's good. It is one of those providential 
indications which foreshadow a brighter future, and 
aim at the establishment of the nation in righteousness. 
And let us not be deterred by the vain and foolish 
clamor of those who, professing to be in favor of their 
country's union, are cordially opposed to their country's 
manly struggle to maintain it. In the conflicts of jus- 
tice, and the discussions of right and wrong, there 
always has been, and ever will be, a large class of men, 
half on this side and half on that, who, either because 
of their natural timidity, or their inward hatred of the 
principle which has left them in the minority, or their 
sympathy with transgressors, or their pecuniary interest, 
or something else, suddenly become afflicted with a 
more than usual amount of wisdom, and desire to deal 
with most miraculous candor when justice is about to 
fall terribly upon unwhipt offenders — that candor which 
the British poet describes : 

" Which loves, in see-saw strain to tell, 
Of acting knavishly, but meaning well ; 
Too nice to praise exactly, or to blame, 
Convinced that all men's motives are the same, 
And finds, with keen discriminating sight, 
Black's not so black, nor white so very white. 

* Christian Politics, p. 219 ; by Rev. H. Christmas, St. John'3 College, Lon- 
don, 1855. 



30 



Barras plays traitor, Merlin takes a bribe : 

What then? Shall Candor these good men prescribe? 

No: ere we join the loud accusing throng, 

Prove— not the facts — but that they thought them wrong.'''' 

Such are some of our patriotic enemies — candid men, 
who would see rebellion triumph rather than lend a 
hand to put it down — men who, of all others, are the 
most difficult to be endured. 

"Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe; 
Bold I can meet him — perhaps may turn his blow ; 
But of all plagues, good heaven, thy wrath can send, 
Save, save, O save me from my candid friend!" 

" I love the bold, uncompromising mind, 
Whose principles are fixed, whose views defined ; 
Who owns, when traitors feel the avenging rod, 
Just retribution and the hand of God.'" 

4. I must omit several other things I desired to 
mention as reasons for thanksgiving ; and note, in the 
last place, the growth of another wholesome sentiment, 
which, pushed into the background by party strifes and 
political issues, reappears at the present juncture to as- 
sert its importance. I refer to the sentiment that religion 
should eve?* be connected with the politics of every citizen 
who desires the establishment of his country in national 
righteousness. How often the insane cry of the blinded 
partisan has been heard, Religion has nothing to do 
with politics ; the Church has nothing to do with the 
State ! a cry heard sometimes even from the pulpit. It 
is refreshing, indeed, to read from the pages of one 
of our most distinguished theological professors, in a 
neighboring State, these words : " The most pernicious 
maxim which could seize upon the American mind, and 
which is just as rife as it is ruinous, is that politics and 



31 

religion have nothing to do with each other, — that they 
are entirely to be divorced in this country."* To the 
same purpose is the equally direct sentiment of another 
distinguished theologian, associated with the former in 
the same Seminary, and of European fame : u Let Ctesar 
attend to his own affairs. But if Caesar undertakes to 
meddle with the affairs of God — if the State pass any 
laws contrary to the law of God — then it is the duty of 
the Church, to whom God has committed the great 
work of asserting and maintaining His truth and will, 
to protect and remonstrate. . . If, in short, it does any 
thing directly contrary to the law of God, the Church 
is bound to make that law known, and set it home upon 
the conscience of all concerned. 1 '! And again, " The 
doctrine that Christian ministers, as such, and Church 
courts have nothing to do with politics, as all other the- 
ories, either false, or half true, has given way like tow 
on the touch of fire when the test occasion comes. If 
by politics be meant the policy of states in reference to 
secular affairs, then it is true that the gospel minister 
has nothing to do with them in the pulpit. But if by 
politics we mean the principles of civil government, and 
the duties thence resulting, then politics belong to the 
higher sphere of morals ; and morals is the science of 
duty, and duty is determined by the law of God."J 
Every unprejudiced mind cannot fail to see the truth of 
these sentiments. Let a state or a nation act upon the 
contrary principle and the result can only be a return 
of the body politic to barbarism, paganism, and the 

* " Sermon for the Times," p. 15, by Eev. A. T. McGill, D.D. Pittsburgh, 1853. 
f Princeton Review. July, 1859, pp. 615, 616. Dr. Hodge. 
X Dr. Hodge. Princeton Review. January, 1861, p. 167. 



32 

power of physical force as the only law. "Had the 
Christian Church," says M. Guizot, the most accom- 
plished writer upon European civilization, "not existed, 
the whole world must have been abandoned to purely 
material force. The Church alone exercised a moral 
power. It did more : it sustained, it spread abroad the 
idea of a rule, of a law superior to all human laws."* 
The triumph of this principle through the labors of 
early Christians, a principle "involving belief toward a 
Person whose authority they regarded as paramount to 
every other," was wrought out, says Isaac Taylor, 
"by a century and a half of suffering by the martyr 
Church, "f 

Let us hail the re-establishment of such sentiments 
as these in the hearts of the people, as unmistakable 
indications that God is awakening, by our afflictions and 
trials, our minds to the nature of the solemn trust He 
has committed to our keeping, in giving us such a 
country as this, blessed with such peerless institutions. 
Let us recognize in this a divine warning how much in 
the past we have neglected our duty, and in what 
manner we are to fulfil it in the future. I think it may 
safely be said, had Christian citizens, magistrates, judges, 
legislators, ministers, and rulers, but mingled their 
religion with their politics more than they have done, 
our nation had not fallen upon these evil times. It is 
" righteousness" that exalts a nation, and the effect of it 
is " quietness and assurance." But if the truths of the 
Bible and the religion of Christ are not to find their 

* History of Civilization. Vol. i., p. 38. Bonn's edition. 
+ Restoration of Belief, p. 72. Philadelphia, 1853. 



way into all our political, as well as social relations, 
such effect is impossible. Why should the family be 
religious and not the state or the nation ? The thought- 
less manner in which Christians and our best citizens 
have exercised the civic function, has but opened the 
way for the elevation to office of low unprincipled poli- 
ticians, whose hands are yellow with the gold that has 
bribed them, who are in league with all iniquity, and 
who by our sufferance, and the indulgence of ourselves 
in the neglect of duty, have been permitted in muni- 
cipal, state, and national affairs, to direct our counsels, 
frame our laws, preside over our interests, and bring us 
into shame and contempt. It is, however, a cheering 
augury of good, that the virtuous and Christian portion 
of the people begin to realize the fact that Religion has 
something to do with Politics, — that the duty of the 
pulpit, the press, and the platform, is to stir up the State 
and the Nation to a sense of its religious responsibilities, 
and to impress upon every citizen the necessity, not 
only in the present crisis, but for all time to come, of 
carrying into political and civil, as well as social rela- 
tions, the eternal principles of God's word. Let us 
thank God that there is an increasing determination on 
the part of the people (may it spread wider!) to burst 
asunder mere party bonds, and elevate to office men of 
personal virtue, such as fear God, love justice, and hate 
a bribe. Speaking of religion and politics, Sir Edmund 
Burke has said, " When a people have emptied them 
selves of all the lust of selfish will, which, without 
religion it is impossible they ever should, when they are 
conscious that they exercise the power which to be 
3 



34 

legitimate must be according to that immutable and 
eternal law in which will and reason are the same, they 
will be more careful how they place power in base and 
incapable hands. In their nomination to office, they will 
not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful 
job, but as to a holy function ; not according to their 
sensual, sordid, selfish interest, nor to their wanton 
caprice, nor to their arbitrary will, but they will confer 
that power on those only in whom they may discern 
that predominant proportion of active virtue and wis- 
dom, taken together and fitted to the charge, such as in 
the great and inevitable mixed mass of human imper- 
fections and infirmities is to be found."* 

May the American people be emptied of their self- 
ishness, by the power of religion, and rise to the full 
appreciation of their duty. Let us hear no more the cry, 
Religion has nothing to do with Politics. Whenever 
religion has adverted to some great moral evil in muni- 
cipal, state, or national affairs, preying upon the very 
vitals of the community, and destroying the foundation 
of all order, and good character, thousands who are 
interested pecuniarily, in some way, in the evil, — like 
the shrine-makers of Diana at Ephesus who, when Paul 
preached, exclaimed " Great is Diana of the Ephesians," 
— have all uttered the common cry that ever excuses 
municipal, state, or national crime, Religion has nothing 
to do with Politics ! The cry is barbarous, pagan, and 
shameful. For, if the foundation of all proper laws is, 
as we have shown, the supreme will of God, if this is 
the basis of all national righteousness, if Government is 

* Works. Vol. i., p. 41G, col. 2. Lond. 1850. 



35 



an ordinance of God, and the Body Politic an institute 
of His, if the Civil Magistrate is God's minister for 
good to the people, and all who are in power hold their 
power as a trust, and become officially accountable to 
God for the exercise thereof, let no man who has any 
respect for either his knowledge, wisdom, common sense, 
or reason, ever mutter that Religion lias nothing to do 
with Politics. It was the disguised cry of the ancient 
Epicurean, as it is of the modern infidel, " God has 
nothing to do with the affairs of men." It finds its root 
and support philosophically in that exploded Warbur- 
tonian and Benthamite theory of Civil Government, so 
plausibly elaborated by writers of the materialistic 
school, (the very men who have made wealth and out- 
ward physical comforts to be the chief aim of society,) 
that government is of origin purely human, by means 
of compacts and conventions, and conversant alone with 
outward and material interests. It is this very error, 
fundamental, deep-rooted in the practice of the Ameri- 
can nation, that lies at the bottom of our national calam- 
ity this day. Accumulation ! Wealth ! Gold ! this has 
been the word. Divide the nation rather than not have 
it. The contest is one between Mammon and God, 
involving the policies, institutions, laws, and purposes 
of each ! Let us bless God that, at last, the people are 
awaking to see that Religion has every thing to do with 
Politics. 

On such like accounts as these, I think we have 
abundant reason, this day, for thanksgiving to Almighty 
God. We still are a nation, crowned with blessing, in 



36 

the enjoyment of a government, brought to public re ; 
cognition of God, and public humiliation on account of 
sin, disturbed in our selfish and too commercial spirit, 
called up higher to the practice and cultivation of 
noble virtues by the necessities of patriotism, returning 
to a better sense of obedience to law, and of the duty 
of administering public justice to offenders, discarding 
the corrupt sentiment that religion has nothing to do 
with politics, opening our eyes to see that civil govern- 
ment is an ordinance of God, religiously to be preserved 
and kept pure, and, in this way, opening our hearts to 
receive those sublime lessons of heavenly wisdom found 
in the Scriptures, whereby we may be built up in right- 
eousness, and secure for ourselves the blessing of that 
people whose God is the Lord. These are the promises, 
the buddings, we cannot but believe of a "good time 
coming." They are proofs that God but designs to 
discipline us, by national judgments, into obedience to 
Himself. They are prophecies that, ere long, the power 
of our national sins shall be so broken, and themselves 
so removed from us, as that the whole country, grateful 
to God for chastisement, and thankful for deliverance 
from rebellion, shall lift herself up from the dust and 
celebrate afresh, with songs of rejoicing, the jubilee of 
her pristine birth. Then, strengthened in the founda- 
tions of national greatness, and established by the ex- 
perience of her afflictions, throwing aside her garments 
of mourning, she shall enter upon a career of national 
glory, greater than ever, by as much as the furnace 
through which she is passing will have consumed her 
dross, and consecrated her to Jehovah as a national 



37 

Israel and servant of the Lord, fit for her Master's use. 
God's voice to her is, to-day, in matchless mercy. Amid 
the roar of His cannon, and the clash of the conflict 
through the wild storm and the agitations of the times, I 
hear that voice ringing still louder in tones of comfort 
and compassion, " thou, afflicted, tossed with tempest 
and not comforted ! I am laying thy stones with fair 
colors, and thy foundations with sapphires. I will make 
thy windows of agates and thy gates of carbuncles, and 
all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children 
shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace 
of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be estab- 
lished : thou shalt be far from oppression, for thou shalt 
not fear, and from terror, for it shall not come nigh 
thee. Behold ! they surely shall gather together, but not 
by me : whosoever shall gather together against thee, 
shall fall for thy sake. No weapon that is formed 
against thee shall prosper ; and every tongue that shall 
rise in judgment against thee thou shalt condemn. This 
is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their 
righteousness is of me, saith God." 

In conclusion let me say, God is preparing the world, 
by the overthrow of all organized systems of error and 
iniquity, for millennial glory. A most striking and re- 
markable feature of the times is that most of the civil 
and political convulsions of the earth, those which gather 
around them the might of military preparation, seem to 
centre themselves upon questions of purely religious and 
moral character. No intelligent man can study the 
present crisis of the world's history, and not be arrested 



38 

by this palpable truth. And no one can fail to see that 
Christianity is the solution. It is in this light the study 
of our modern era becomes clothed with the intensest 
interest. " Modern history," says one of the most saga- 
cious thinkers and accomplished writers that ever touched 
upon history, "is not only a step in advance of ancient 
history, but it is the last step. It appears to bear the 
marks of the fulness of time, as if there would be no 
future history beyond it." He continues to say, " with- 
out any presumptuous confidence, if there be any signs, 
however uncertain, that we are living in the latest period 
of the world's history, that no other races of men remain 
behind to perform what we have neglected, or restore 
what we have ruined, then indeed the interest of modern 
history does become intense, and the importance of not 
wasting the time still left to us, may well be called incal- 
culable. When an army's last reserve has been brought 
into action, every single soldier knows that he must do 
his duty to the utmost ; that if he cannot win the battle 
now, he must lose it. So, if our existing nations are the 
last reserve of the world, its fate may be said to be in 
their hands, — GocVs work on earth will he left undone if 
they do not do it."* 

Occurring events, all over the world, justify the more 
than probable truth of such profound and solemn reflec- 
tions, and open out, I think, before the American nation 
a prospect most glorious, and a future most sublime. By 
the civil and political agitations of the earth, God is 
but preparing the nations to accomplish His eternal will. 
Zion is to be redeemed with judgment and her converts 

* Arnold's Lectures on Modern History, pp. 46, 48. New York, 1S5G. 



39 

with righteousness. To fulfil this, Jehovah will let loose 
His anger upon the world, breaking in upon all forms 
of organized error and iniquity, in states and kingdoms, 
in empires and nations. He will derange the entire sys_ 
tern of things, shaking once more not only the earth but 
heaven also, and removing the things that are shaken to 
make way for a kingdom which cannot be moved. The 
earth shall be utterly emptied and spoiled. Then, when 
the vials are poured, and finished, and He shall say 
" Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations 
He hath made in the earth ; He maketh wars to cease 
unto the end of the earth ! " where, amid crumbled em- 
pires, demolished thrones, broken political organizations, 
and the wide wreck of kingdoms, shall this nation ap- 
pear ? Standing, we humbly and devoutly believe, es- 
tablished in righteousness and truth before the Lord, 
purified by all her trials now, and whatever others He 
may see fit graciously to send upon her, and wearing, 
upon her brow, His blessing, as the diadem of her glory. 
The Lord smile upon her and deliver her out of all her 
troubles ! 

"Jussaiwtcslatis terrenm discutienda 
Cortestis tibi mox perficienda, scias: 
Siquis divinis jubcat contraria jussis 
To contra Dominum f actio nulla trahat." 

Abelard. 



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